What Goes Around
by Desha
Summary: This is a little expansion on one of my favorite in-game scenes. Yuffie and Elena being rescued from Don Corneo in Wutai. I always thought it was a little too short. And that it needed more Reno.


**What Goes Around**

by Desha

 _Author's Note: This is just a little Reno/Yuffie randomness. It started as an excuse to expand on one of my favorite scenes in the game... Yuffie and Elena getting rescued in Wutai... and morphed into this. Hope you enjoy! Also, I updated my website (see my profile for link) and will be adding various bits and pieces there over the coming weeks.  
_

* * *

"Ow."

Yuffie sat up, rubbing her head. The last thing she remembered was light... streams of intense light, streaking upwards from the planet itself, winding through the sky toward...

"Meteor!" she exclaimed, and immediately wished she hadn't, as her cry reverberated in her own skull, setting the world around her to spinning. She groaned and closed her eyes, trying to shut out the nauseating sensation of vertigo. Yuffie rested her head in her hands, doing her best to ignore the throbbing headache she hadn't even noticed until now. The coppery odor of blood only made the queasiness she felt worse, and judging by the sticky, tangled mass of hair matted against her head, she guessed it was her own.

She pressed a hand to the side of her head, feeling the wetness coat her fingers, and dared to open her eyes again.

'Yep... that's blood alright,' she thought, dazedly, staring at her bloodied fingers.

"I am sooooo gonna be sick..." she moaned, as she lay back down, curling onto her side, and fighting the urge to gag.

"Well, look at it this way... If ya feel that bad, you're probably not dead yet, right?"

"Right..." she muttered in agreement, "... Huh?!" Her eyes snapped open, and in spite of the aching in her head, and the violent churning of her stomach, looked around for the source of the voice. All she saw, however, were barren rocks and bleak, gray skies.

"Heh... Real intelligent conversation we're having here... 'Course you do look like the ditzy airhead type... Guess I really shouldn't expect complete sentences."

"Hey!" Yuffie yelled at the voice, sitting up indignantly in spite of her injuries, and looking around, trying to sort out the details of her surroundings.

"Whoa! Hey, don't move, kiddo... You're not exactly in the safest position down there..." said the voice, mocking tone gone, and now decidedly taking on a note of genuine concern.

"Down where?'" Yuffie murmured to herself, as the world around her began to come into sharper focus, "... Oh, crap..."

'I'm on a cliff... How in Leviathan's name did I end up on a cliff?" she thought, swallowing down the urge to panic, all movement freezing. She hardly dared breath. The ledge she was on was narrow and slightly slanted. Yuffie cautiously peered over the edge, eyes widening at what she saw; a sheer vertical drop of several hundred feet... or at least several hundred feet to the clouds of mist that obscured whatever was below them. Who knew how much farther down it went? Far in the distance, she could see the ocean, and beyond that, in the waning daylight, plumes of black smoke rising from a source too distant to make out.

"Hey... still with me, brat?

"I know that voice..." she insisted to herself, as she tried to focus long enough to picture the face that went along with it. She took another look around. There was no one on the ledge with her.

"Up here, genius..."

Yuffie's gazed jerked upwards, the movement making her wince, toward a ledge some distance above her, and her gaze met with a familiar, though not entirely welcome sight.

"Oh, great... It's you," she called back to the red-haired man that was looking down at her.

"Yup... Ya know, we gotta stop meeting like this. People will start to talk..."

Yuffie blinked in confusion... and then a moment later, her brain caught up to the conversation, bringing forth memories of their first meeting.

* * *

 _"Get me down! Cloud! Come on, please?"_

 _"And I thought Elena had a big mouth," Reno commented to his partner. Rude made no comment._

 _"Hey!" the two women chorused in shared resentment._

 _"Ugh... Why would anyone want to be a Turk if it meant having to put up with that creep?" Yuffie asked the woman who shared her current predicament. Elena visibly cringed._

 _"He's really not that bad..." she said, somewhat hesitantly, "... Sometimes."_

 _"Riiiiight... I think you've been upside down too long," the ninja replied, before yelling back to the figures above them, "Are ya gonna get us down or are ya gonna stand there all day?!"_

 _"Just hang on, Yuffie! We'll get you..." came a voice from below._

 _She looked down - down being the only direction she could really see at the moment without straining her neck - at Cloud, who seemed to be searching for some way to reach the stranded materia thief._

 _"Hey... W-what about me?" the blond woman beside her asked nervously._

 _"What'll it be Rude?" asked Reno, "Should we stick around and and see if we can haul Elena off this cliff, or shall we head back to Turtle's Paradise?"_

 _"..."_

 _"Happy hour's comin' up soon..." Reno taunted._

 _"THAT'S NOT FUNNY!" the stranded Turk cried._

 _"Aw, relax 'Lena. Don't act so weak..."_

* * *

"Hello? Earth to ninja-brat..."

"Huh?" Yuffie looked up again, and realized she must have spaced out for a minute there.

"Yet another intelligent response. You sure have a way with words, kid."

"Shut up!"

"Did the blow to the head shave off a few dozen IQ points, or have you always been like this?"

"I thought I told you to shut up... And what blow to the head?" she asked, rubbing her throbbing temples. Though the more she thought about it, the more she realized just how stupid that question must have sounded.

"Wow. You're way more out of it than I thought... Look, just don't move, ok?"

There was that note of concern again. What the hell was going on? Why was Reno, of all people, worried about her. For that matter, why was he even here? Where were Cloud and the others?

* * *

 _Tendrils of pale light... Lifestream. She peered out the wide window of the Highwind's cockpit. It was beautiful, like a river of materia flowing through the sky... And the patterns the shimmering light wove through the air were like some sort of dream._

 _Unfortunately, her stomach wasn't quite as aesthetically awed by the display as the rest of her was._

 _Yuffie groaned and clapped a hand to her mouth as the airship's pilot deftly maneuvered the craft, in and out, around the streams. She hadn't thought her motion-sickness could ever possibly get any worse. Oh, how wrong she'd been._

 _She sprinted from the cockpit, hoping that getting out into the fresh air would help, and stumbled along the catwalk to the deck. All things considered, it was probably a terrible idea... but being trapped inside the rocking airship was pure torture. She'd take her chances on deck._

 _Yuffie pried open the hatch and clambered out into the fresh air, clinging tightly to the doorframe as she gulped down deep breaths. It really did help a bit. Her queasiness, though far from gone, began to ease. After a few minutes, she took a few tentative steps farther out onto the deck and willed herself to relax._

 _She'd been fairly confident in her decision to come out here... right up until the Highwind had turned sharply to the right, sending her careening painfully into the railing. An equally sharp left, sent her head over heels to the opposite side. Her last conscious thought was a loud thud and a sharp pain, as if someone had just split her skull open._

* * *

A rope smacked into the cliff face a few feet to her left, and Yuffie nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Shit, I said don't move!" Reno called down to her. Yuffie blinked. She really, REALLY had to stop losing focus like that. But now... now she had a way out of this mess. A quick climb, and she was out here. She could do that in her sleep.

She reached out for the rope, only to very quickly jerk herself back against the rock wall behind her as as a wave of dizziness assaulted her and she began to fall forward. Maaaaybe she wasn't quite as capable of making that climb as she thought.

"For fuck's sake, what part of 'DON'T MOVE' is too hard for you to understand?! Just sit there. Do. Not. Move."

Yuffie decided that maybe she'd be better off listening to the Turk.

* * *

 _A rope dropped down beside her, slapping softly against the stone. Then a second rope, this one coming down next to Elena._

 _"Don't go anywhere!" Reno called out, in mock helpfulness. A few pebbles rained down from the upper ledge, tumbling down to the the ground below, and the next thing Yuffie knew, she and Elena weren't the only people dangling precariously from the side of the mountain._

 _"So... Need a hand?" Reno asked, smirking at the two women._

 _"Ugh... Just get me out of here," Yuffie replied. Rude was already cutting a very relieved Elena free from her bonds._

 _"Hey, if you're gonna act so ungrateful, then just forget it. I'll leave ya up here and Spike down there can haul your butt down instead," he replied, "Ready to go 'Lena?"_

 _"Y-yes, please," Elena said, grimacing as Rude slipped a harness around her and carefully turned her rightside up, the blood that had been rushing to her head now reversing course and leaving her dizzy._

 _"You heard her. Take'er down, Rude!" Reno crowed, and the two Turks dropped into a controlled descent, "So... What's it gonna be? You want down, too?"_

 _"You are SUCH a jerk!" Yuffie growled at him. Reno shrugged._

 _"Well, I guess that's a no, then," he said, and prepared to lower himself as well._

 _"Ack... wait! You can't just leave me up here!"_

 _"Sure I can," Reno said, grinning, "I'm sure your friends'll come up and get ya. Eventually. And if you're not gonna ask me nice..."_

 _"Ok! Ok..." she conceded, "PLEASE get me down."_

 _"That's more like it," Reno nodded, "Now, was that really so hard?"_

 _Yuffie bit her tongue, not trusting herself not to say something that would make him reconsider. Reno made quick work of the ropes holding her arms to the cliff face, and then mirroring Rude's actions with Elena, slid the harness around her back, cut the remaining ropes, and turned her rightside up._

 _"Hold on tight," he said with a grin._

 _The next thing she knew, they were falling. Yuffie let out a yelp of surprise, and instinctively clung to Reno. She could hear him snickering loudly as their descent slowed to a less nerve wracking pace, and a moment later, her feet were firmly on the ground once more._

 _"You... you... JERK!" she yelled as she fought to get free of the harness._

 _"You're welcome," Reno said, smugly. Yuffie made a noise of disgust and stormed off to join her companions._

 _The groups looked at each other for a moment, before Reno finally spoke, "Well, this has been fun and all, but we're still off duty, and I for one intend to get back to enjoying it. But next time we see you guys... you're not getting off so easily."_

 _With that, he and Rude headed back down the trail towards town. Elena, however, hesitated a moment._

 _"Err... Um... He wouldn't have really left you, you know. Not really. That's... just the way he is," she said to Yuffie before hurrying off after the rest of her team._

* * *

"Hey..."

Yuffie had no idea how long she'd drifted off for that time, but when her mind finally came back to the present, she was a little surprised to suddenly find herself face to face with Reno, who was gazing at her somewhat quizzically.

"Anyone home in there?" he asked. Yuffie nodded. Her head hurt, and it was getting harder and harder to focus on much of anything. Reno frowned, "Yeah... I think maybe we better get you out of here..."

"I like that idea," she replied.

He moved carefully toward her, and helped her pull the loop of a make-shift harness fashioned from the rope over her head, slipping it under her arms.

"Hold on tight," he instructed, pulling her against his chest. Yuffie wrapped her arms around him, letting her aching head rest on his shoulder as her eyes closed.

"Alright, guys! Pull us up!" he yelled, and Yuffie winced at the volume. Slowly, the pair began to rise toward the upper ledge.

* * *

She must have passed out... because the next time she opened her eyes, she was staring up at a softly buzzing florescent light fixture with no memory of how she got there. The painful aching in her head had been reduced to a dull throbbing. She raised a hand to her temple, and found soft bandages. Yuffie sat up and groaned as the room spun for a moment.

"Yuffie! You're awake!"

"Tifa?" she questioned, as the walls finally started to behave themselves and held still. Tifa joined her at her bedside.

"We were so worried!" she said, "What in the world were you thinking... going out on deck like that? You could have been killed!"

"I know... I know... I'm sorry," she replied, "Err... where are we?"

"Kalm," she replied, "They're helping with the Midgar rescue effort. It's pretty bad. Cid and the Highwind are running people back and forth, taking in people to help find survivors, and ferrying the injured here, and to Junon."

"Everyone's helping..." she continued, "... even the Turks, if you can believe it. They're the ones that brought you here."

"Wait... so I didn't just dream that?" Yuffie asked, "How'd they even find me?"

"They saw you fall," Tifa replied, "Apparently, they were still following us around, even at the end. Had a helicopter hovering outside the Northern Crater the whole time. Guess it's kind of lucky they did, really."

"Yeah..."

"Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you were alright. I have to get back... There are new people coming in all the time, and everyone's swamped!" she said, sounding uncharacteristically frazzled.

"Uh... Sure. Hey, don't worry about me," Yuffie said, finding the energy to grin at her friend, "I'm fine. Go help some people who actually need it."

Tifa returned her smile and left with a wave. Yuffie leaned back against the pillow.

* * *

The next time she woke, it was dark. Light crept in from the hallway, the but room lights had been doused, and through the window, she could see only a handful of stars in the moonless, overcast sky. For a moment, she wasn't quite sure what had woken her... until a sudden movement in the shadows drew her eye toward the door. There was someone else in the room with her.

Uncertain, she feigned sleep. She was unarmed. She was on her own. She wasn't exactly in fighting form. But if whoever this person was intended her harm, she would have the best chance at close range. She could barely make out the footsteps on the floor. Whoever it was, they were used to using the shadows.

Beside her bed, the intruder paused. Yuffie tensed, anticipating an attack.

"Tch... Relax, brat... If I wanted to kill ya, I'd've just left ya on that cliff. I'm just makin' sure today wasn't a wasted effort," a quiet voice said. Yuffie's eyes snapped open.

"R-reno?" she said, incredulously, staring at him in the darkness.

"Anyway... looks like you're still alive and all, so I'm outta here."

He turned to leave.

"Hey, wait a minute!" she called out, "That's it? That's all you came for? To make sure rescuing me wasn't a waste of your time?"

"Yep," Reno replied, and she could practically see the smug grin on his face even in the dark, as he made his way to the door.

"Ugh... You are such a jerk," she said, though there was no real anger in her voice.

"You're welcome," he replied, before disappearing into the night.

*~fin~*


End file.
